Legacy
by LuminaCarina
Summary: Teddy thinks about the scars the war left, the ones on skin and the ones on minds, and he decides he truly hates the legacy of the war.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter**

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There were times Teddy hated his legacy, because it was a legacy of memories and blood, both awe-inspiring and sad.

He was a child of war heroes, a remnant of the dead and a reminder of the past. His cousins grew up hearing stories of the war, but they weren't really a part of it. They had been born well into peacetime, while his parents had had him in between battles. So yes, there was a big difference.

And he knew it best on occasions such as this one.

It was the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, and while Teddy had no real relevance to the battle's end, he was the son of Remus and Nymphadora Lupin, which made the battle his business. Every year his godfather brought him to the gathering, and every year he had to watch all the people there talking about the same old things and comparing the same old scars, periodically patting him on his head and saying how much he looked like his mother. We're metamorphmagi, of course we look alike, he wanted to scream, but he never did. It would be rude.

But still, it was weird and uncomfortable, and it always left him with two dozen stones in his gut and a nightmare waiting on him at home. It wasn't the guests' fault, not really, but…

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His godfather was a mild case of nausea to Teddy. The only times he showed his oddities and mental scars was when in company of his friends and fellow fighters. Even then he kept up his image of a light-hearted man who never truly grew up, always smiling and joking and teasing his wife, who would of course be pregnant again. Teddy wondered if it would be another boy, or he would get a girl for a cousin this time.

But the Potter patriarch could be scary when he wanted to be. Teddy remembered well the face he wore when Mr Malfoy had shown up at the party for the first time. He had never seen his godfather that angry. And then there was the look he had when he saw Aunt Ginny's scars, which stretched across her thighs and went up her hips, all thin and silvery and barely there. They only rarely saw them, because even in summer his aunt preferred wearing long skirts over short ones.

There was a different sort of anger when he watched Teddy himself: an empty kind of confusion that had him wanting to hug the man and assure him he loved him.

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Lavender Brown frightened Teddy.

The woman never did anything to hurt him or scare him on purpose, but Teddy knew for a fact that her eyes, which glinted with amber somewhere deep within, were the same eyes his father had had, and since those eyes made his heart beat erratically, Teddy tended to avoid her as much as possible.

She was a beautiful woman, tanned and long-limbed, like caramel. Even her hair was the colour of toffee. But she was a ruined beauty, too.

Where Aunt Ginny's scars were almost invisible, Miss Brown's scars were impossible to ignore. They were angry and white, as thick as Teddy's fingers, and covered what seemed to be her entire skin. All over her back, her neck, her left arm and the left side of her face, the scars twisted like vines and decorated her like some gaudy accessories. She wasn't even ashamed of them, but wore them proudly.

The shirts she preferred, the flimsy strips of fabric held on only by a thin string tied around her neck which covered absolutely nothing, made him even more uncomfortable than her scars did.

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Neville Longbottom would one day be his professor.

He was a soft-hearted man with a hard face. The scars he had weren't like Miss Brown's or aunt Ginny's, or even like his godfather's. They were tiny and peppered his jawline like stubble would, but what made him stand out from the crowd were his eyes. The right one was sharp and brown, warm, while the other one, the left one, was milky white and stared off into the distance unseeingly.

He was still one of the kindest men Teddy had ever met, and he never failed to offer him a lollypop and muss up his hair.

His wife, Mrs Hannah, always smiled at him with pouty pink lips which never let out a single sound. Teddy thought she must have had an incredibly beautiful voice for all her friends to look so sad every time she wrote out her words with her fingers and hands.

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Teddy adored his Uncle George.

The redhead was everything an uncle should be: funny, mischievous, outrageous and mysterious. He owned a joke shop and kept all Teddy's secrets from his Aunt Ginny and Grandma Molly.

But there was always something there, and Teddy would never forget the time when he and Aunt Ginny walked in on his uncle stroking the planes of his cheekbones and staring at the hand mirror lying innocently on the table in front of him.

His aunt had burst into hysterical tears, and the next day his uncle's face was covered in make-up. Teddy never did figure out why the fact that his uncle wore eye shadow and lipstick wasn't funny or embarrassing at all.

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Aunt Fleur was the most beautiful woman Teddy had ever seen in his entire life, and he was sure she would remain in that position for the rest of his life as well.

She was even more beautiful for the fact that she loved him like he was one of her own children, and Teddy thought that that must be the reason he let her talk on about his and Vicky's wedding, when all others who did the same were shouted at. But still, for all her beauty, she was also fragile.

Teddy recalled well the hysterical panic and rage she flew into when his Uncle Bill went away on work for longer than a week. Her face would sharpen and her fingernails would lengthen and curve, and there would be nothing beautiful about her at all.

He really hoped Vicky and Dom wouldn't be like that when they grew up, too.

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Mr Malfoy was an interesting case for Teddy.

He didn't have any scars, on his skin nor on his mind. In fact, his skin was pale and unblemished, his mind cold and calculated, and everything about him screamed 'money'.

He remembered, quite clearly, that time when the blond had first shown up, that he had asked the man why he was there. He didn't have any scars, he had reasoned, so he had no reason to be there.

He still remembered the ugly laughter that followed his words.

We all have scars, boy, he had said, some are just more noticeable than others. And then he had rolled up his sleeve and shown him a strange bruise in the shape of a skull. There might have been a snake there, too, but the Malfoy had rolled his sleeve down before Teddy could know for sure.

His godfather was there, Teddy had realised, and had heard and seen everything he and Mr Malfoy had said. After that, later in the evening when he was wrapped up in blankets and lying in his bed, Teddy found out what the bruise had meant from a tight-faced Potter, and he wished he had avoided saying anything to the blond former Death-Eater.

The next year, Mr Malfoy was let into the hall with no questions asked and Teddy pretended he didn't see the blond when the man tried to catch his eye.

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He blinked and accepted the glass of orange juice from his godfather, and faked the smile he sent as a thank you. He hated these gatherings, he hated them with a fiery passion, and he thought he might throw his glass into the wall if anyone mentioned his father again, but it wasn't that bad.

At least they happened only once a year, and there was always cake.

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**Reviews are always welcomed.**

**Unedited.**

**Unbetaed.**


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